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This is called jan baha “to make a flower out of bone”implying the regeneration of the patriline.Two other figures, from clanic myths, stress the identityof humans and trees: thus bid dare, “to lift a branch ofsal ” alludes to the gesture of the chiefs during themigrations, who used to brandish a branch of sal, symbolof the ancestors, towards the sky to rally theircompanions. Even today, such a branch is planted atcrossroads to inform villagers about a meeting, the numberof leaves indicating the number of days before the event.Planted with its leaves downwards, the same branchindicates that a meeting will sanction a transgression ofendogamy. The branch as metonymic for the personappears in different contexts: the expression karam dar“branch of the karam tree” is used to address a ceremonialfriend. More globally, branches and saplings (dar) alludeto grand-children, roots (rehe) to ancestors, and climbers(nanri) to friends, in ceremonial speech during marriageor in narratives about the ancestors. The same metonymyapplies to parts of the tree, linked to parts of the body:branch relates to arm, roots to feet, leaves to ears, bark toskin, sap to blood, trunk to body, upper branches to headand so on.The image of the ear is also rooted in narratives, asancestors used to rest under trees to listen (anjom) to thetradition “with their ears under the leaves.” Here, leavesallude to ancestors and continuity. Reciprocally, to touchsomebody’s ear marks an engagement: young couplescatch each other’s ears to get betrothed. During themarriage ceremony, the bride’s parents warn the parentsof the boy that they have given the flesh and the bones ofthe girl but “have kept the blood from the ear”, a way tosay they will keep an eye on their daughter, even aftermarriage.The animal metaphor as an external metaphorDomestic animals, insects, water snails and crabs - whichare eaten by the Santals - are found in riddles. But tigersand leopards cannot be evoked in twisted speech as theyserve as witnesses when somebody takes an oath andsays: “Let tigers and leopards eat me if I lie!” Externalmetaphors that are built on comparisons are found inanimal riddles. Most often, the hidden term of thiscomparison refers to another animal or to a human beingas in the following: “A black dog is swimming in theriver” answer: “A leech”: the implicit meaning is thatnobody sees the legs of a swimming dog. But myinformants suggest another homology between the dogand the leech: “When we work in a rice-field” they say,“leeches rub our legs just like a dog.”Yet another riddle built on different premises suggestsanother aspect of the leech: “A sheep is killed for the onewho has no teeth”; answer: “A leech.” Here, the killingof the sheep evokes a blood sacrifice to a mysterious entityCourtesy: www.kamat.orgA Santali girldeprived of teeth while the answer stresses the bloodsuckingnature of the leech, which in its turn recalls thebonga.Some of these external metaphors express paradoxes thatget resolved in similarities: tiny animals which seem verystrange have, in fact, some hidden human dimensions:“With haste, he has built his house”; answer: luman, thesilkworm. The silkworm symbolises the taming ofwilderness as they produce silk thread, but the Santalstalk of the silkworm to evoke the puberty of young boys.Becoming adult implies a risk that is compared to themutation of the silkworms as they emerge from theircocoons, an image which, in ritual speech, describes thewandering of the ancestors across mythic countries.Some of the animal riddles are used as warning. It iscommon to say to a pregnant woman: “Do not look atthe tortoise!” (hembrom). The Santals think it a taboofor pregnant women to look at the tortoise (flesh andbelly), since it evokes the open skin of the baby’s head.Both anatomical parts are “skin under bone”, which isevident for the tortoise but applies equally to the babywhose skull is not yet closed, and reflects the beatingof its heart. Both the belly of the tortoise and the skullof the baby are supposed to get harder to become bone.Moreover, the flesh of the tortoise is called “bonga kojel” or bonga’s flesh. Infants should avoid touchingtortoises as their shadow is not yet fixed, and theymay be attacked by bongas.Twisted speech and the hidden intentions of discourseIn daily life as well as in ritual discourse, utterancestransfer moral attributes to objects that frame specific kindsof interaction, such as “a fowl promised” or sim agom8 INDIAN FOLKLIFE VOLUME 2 ISSUE 3 JANUARY - MARCH 2003
that denotes a sal leaf wrapping a few feathers of a fowl.In case of misfortune, a kinsman of the sick persondedicates this materialised promise to the bonga, who isheld responsible for the disease.Heavy speech (hambal) conceals the intentions of thespeaker. Such a speech traverses the person to whom itis addressed, and the idea of crossing implies death(paromea, he has crossed, he is dead). Some domesticimplements have a double meaning. For example, thegrinding-stone (gurgu) used to crush the roots of turmeric(sasan) conveys an idea of fertility, since the clothes ofthe bride and the bridegroom are daubed with sasan waterbefore the wedding. But young men who learn the art ofpossession sit and turn on the gurgu to get in a trance,which is compared to love ecstasy. Thus the grindingstonelinks possession and sexual pleasure. At night,witches crush poisonous roots on the gurgu to provokemiscarriage.The semantic holism of ritual discourseThe internal metaphors, like “humans are trees,” developimages at different levels of discourse, such as the namegivingceremony, narratives, riddles, invocations orexorcism. But one category of text, the karma binti, is sungby a guru to honour the memory of a prestigious deceased(goc’karam binti). The Karam narrative elucidates magicalproperties of trees, which stand for wealth and virtue. Itpresents some ritual enigmas where taboos regarding treesare questioned: thus it is said, “do not use the soso treefor the funeral pyre, it does not burn.” The paradox isresolved if one knows that for exorcism, ojhas makeoracular sticks from the branches of soso, which are pliableand, in certain circumstances, spit fire. This fire iscompared to Shakti, the cosmic energy of the goddess, orto the ojha’s matted hair. (Carrin, 1997).Santals use bentha katha to produce metaphors that arelinked to form a coherent body of knowledge, like thevegetal/human/animal paradigm. These metaphors maybe used in formulas of ceremonial speech or even ritualgestures. During the divorce ritual, the husband tearsthe leaf but keeps silent: the metaphor is enough. Santalojhas who master ritual discourse comment on bentha kathaby arguing that the twisted speech is the original languageof the bongas, which men try in vain to imitate. Ojhas arefond of telling stories of meetings between men andbongas, where the latter proffer inaudible speech, not todialogue with humans but to threaten them. (Carrin1996a). One cannot communicate with bongas since therelationship is asymmetrical. Still, bongas often appear inhuman form so as to seduce women and trap them sothat they forget taboos or transgress sexual rules. Theojhas are the best informants about witches as they seewitches roam the villages by night, aiming their magicaldarts at human victims. (Carrin 1996b).Coherence of twisted speech as a kind of knowledgeHow can a discourse which is conveyed by different kindsof utterances and repertoires of speech forms represent asingle body of knowledge? Geertz (1983) has shown thatknowledge is ineluctably local, indivisible from people’sinstruments and encasements. Barth proposes to breakwith the implicit presupposition of cultural unity, todistinguish and analyse the “internal processes ofdifferently constituted traditions of knowledge.” (2002:3). Two kinds of knowledge are at work in Santal society:the knowledge of ordinary people, which relates to thetradition transmitted by the ancestors; and the secretknowledge of the ojha who belongs to a broader traditionthat is mixed with popular Hinduism tinged with tantricor shaktist elements. We have seen how Santals reflecton their own linguistic activity. They conceptualise thegood knowledge of the ojha (bidia) as a language to appeasemalevolent bongas, while witches have stolen the bidiaand perverted it. This local conception of knowledgeenables us to evaluate how metaphors shape a model ofknowledge production and transmission. The fieldcovered by metaphors includes both daily communicationand ritual discourse, two modes of speech, which areparallel, as can be seen from words that have a doublemeaning.Courtesy: www.kamat.orgA Santali mother with her childI have used an interactional conception of metaphor,inspired by pragmatics, to analyse how different figuresare displaced from one level of discourse to another. Thepragmatic approach has allowed me to consider someobjects as support of speech, as when words stand forobjects; and to materialise intentions of discourse, as wehave seen with the grinding-stone and the winnowingvan.SANTAL THEORY OF DISCOURSE9
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